Question

I have a big page with much spaghetti code. I’m not sure which solution is faster for the server.

The first solution

<div> ... many html code ....

 <?
         if(isset($ubo['day']['xxl']['0']))
         {
             $firstHit = $ubo['day']['xxl']['0']['title'];
            echo "<div style=\"cursor:pointer;\">$firstHit </div>";
         }
 ?>

 ... many html code .... </div>

this solution ( I use ‘ instead of " )

<?
     // many php code
     if(isset($ubo['day']['xxl']['0']))
     {
          $firstHit = $ubo['day']['xxl']['0']['title'];   
     }

     // one echo with all html code 
     echo "<div> ... many html code ....
           <div style='cursor:pointer;'>$firstHit </div>
            ... many html code .... </div>";

?>

or this solution

<?
     // many php code
     if(isset($ubo['day']['xxl']['0']))
     {
          $firstHit = $ubo['day']['xxl']['0']['title'];   
     }

     // one echo with all html code
     echo "<div> ... many html code ....
           <div style=\"cursor:pointer;\">$firstHit </div>
            ... many html code .... </div>";

?>

Answer 1

Of the solutions presented, I would say that the first is probably best. General rule is that you should put as much into strait HTML as possible. This is both for the developer’s sake as well as the server’s. Stuff outside of <?php ?> is basically raw data which, while it still needs to be parsed on some level, can basically be served to the user straight up.

If anything, you may want to refine it further:

<!-- as a note: in all of your examples except the first, this div exists.
     In the first it only exists if the isset returns true. -->
<div style="cursor:pointer;">
    <php?
    if(isset($ubo['day']['xxl']['0']))
    {
         echo $ubo['day']['xxl']['0']['title'];
    } ?>
</div>

You also could probably optimize through storing $ubo['day']['xxl'] in some local variable elsewhere on the page.